Tag: belief

What Was Your Childhood Religious Tradition And Do You Still Follow It? by Carol P. Christ

Recently, in an interview with the Women’s Living History Project of Claremont Graduate University, I was asked: What religious tradition did you identify with as a child and how did it impact your childhood? and: Is your tradition the same today that you had when growing up?

I was surprised that the interview questions didn’t ask anything about feminism, experiencing exclusion in patriarchal religions, or belief.  My religious and political convictions, which are intertwined, have alienated me from family members.  Therefore, I was suspicious of questions that seemed to have been formulated by someone for whom religion and family go together, and for whom believing or not believing (!) did not seem to be an important issue.

After expressing criticism of the questions, I agreed to work with them.  My answer to the first question was that I did not have a single religious tradition as a child. I had four.  Continue reading “What Was Your Childhood Religious Tradition And Do You Still Follow It? by Carol P. Christ”

Things That Make Me Cry: The Practice of Unbelief by Leanne Dedrick

I have been doing a lot of unpacking lately, both literally and figuratively. I have recently moved to a different city, and returned to a place I once knew well, many years ago. It hasn’t been a case of ‘going home again’ as much as it has been an expression of self awareness of my preferences, but as with other significant life events, there are surprises waiting around each corner — surprises that carry with them hidden issues that require figurative unpacking. For the purposes of this post, however, I will only address one. It is the one that left my FB friends scratching their heads and sending me comments like, “WTF?” and “Wow. You surprise me!” and “Have you lost your mind?” It also led to the most annoying statement anyone can ever hear, “Obviously, you have issues you aren’t dealing with…” I don’t know about you, and maybe it is just my age, or the fact that I am a philosopher, but it is damn near the biggest insult you can pay me. The way I see it, and live it, my obsessively organized and compulsively compartmentalized mind is constantly on hyper-drive when it comes to analyzing and ‘dealing’ with my ‘issues.’ So after a few days of sitting with (read: doing anything but calmly sitting with) my annoyance and reviewing my own out of character posts, I have gotten to a place where I can begin to unpack the responses of others, rather than perseverate on my own insecurities. Continue reading “Things That Make Me Cry: The Practice of Unbelief by Leanne Dedrick”